MACAU'S recently opened US$1 billion International Airport has become the latest in a line of Asian airports to utilise a new networked passenger management system installed by leading networking solutions supplier ITS.

Called CUTE OS (Common Use of Terminal Equipment Open System), the new passenger system will be used to process an estimated 1.8 million passengers who will use the airport in the first year.

'By standardising the workstations used at each check-in counter, CUTE OS allows airline personnel to quickly and easily transfer from station to station to meet the varying levels of demand,' Benny Lee, general manager of ITS Hong Kong and China, said.

CUTE OS, a product of ITS' parent company SITA, will be supplied initially for 64 check-in counters under phase one of the project.

According to preliminary forecasts by consultants Wilbur Smith Associates, passenger throughput at the airport is expected to more than treble to 6,520,000 by 2009.

Each of the 64 check-in aisles is equipped with a Siemens-Nixdorf terminal together with the latest Dassault BPR600 boarding pass printer, eliminating the need to issue and retrieve boarding passes manually.

More than eight kilometres of fibre-optic cabling was laid by ITS around the terminal to act as the core backbone for all data communication activities.